Around
and About St Andrews

St
Andrews is a town of some 15,000 people, beautifully
situated on the Fife coast [maps].
The major cities of Dundee and Edinburgh are about 25
and 70 minutes travel away respectively.

Today
St Andrews is known as the home of Scotland's first university,
the home of golf, and a popular tourist destination.
The ruins of the cathedral and castle, viewed at left
from the pier, are memories of the days when St Andrews
was the capital of Scotland.

The University is spread throughout the town. The
historic chapel and quadrangle of St Salvator's College
can be seen at the top of the aerial photo on the right.
Both University and town are steeped in history, but that
does not mean that the University remains in the past.
Modern science buildings, forefront research, and innovative
teaching abound. A number of the science buildings,
including ours, are on the North Haugh site, and are pictured
at the foot of this page.

However,
the history of St Andrews can be used as an "excuse"
for a number of interesting student traditions.
These include the pier walk (shown above) and the "Academic
Family" system, where many entrant students choose
an academic "mother" and "father"
from their friends in third and fourth year.

The
University has a strong residential system, with around
two-thirds of students living in University owned accommodation.
This ranges from halls of residence which provide almost
full board, to self catering flats. The John-Burnet
hall of residence is shown alongside; this is some 200
metres from the School of Physics and Astronomy.
Some residences are historic buildings, others are much
more recent. All are within walking distance of
each other, the centre of town, and the various University
departments. However, many students choose to bring
a bicycle to St Andrews to speed up these journeys.
The University Accommodation
Website contains details about many of the halls.

The University Sports Centre has recently received a major
upgrade, and now boasts various all-weather outside facilities,
as well as a wide range of indoor and grass-based outdoor
facilities. There are student clubs catering for
a huge range of sports interests. The town has a
nice swimming pool, and small yachts can often be seen
off the east sands. But the most obvious sport for
which St Andrews is known is golf. The famous links
courses are "owned" by the town. Residents
(including students) are able to play these courses for
a remarkably small annual fee. The Old Course is
periodically host to the British Open Golf Championships.
The view from the library in our building takes in the
links courses; we are told that in one of the Microsoft
golf simulation games our building can be clearly seen
in the background!

The
Scottish hills are within easy driving distance.
The beautiful and rugged scenery is well worth a walk
through in the summer, and there can be exciting opportunities
for both downhill and cross country skiing in the winter.
Because of its proximity to the sea, St Andrews itself
rarely has snow lying for any length of time. Indeed,
this corner of the country is sometimes able to boast
more hours of sunshine per year than anywhere else in
the UK.

A
number of the science schools are on the North Haugh site,
which is on the western edge of the town. Biomolecular
Science is also in the building labelled as "Chemistry"
above. Halls of residence can also be seen in this picture,
which looks approximately west from the town's long-stay
car park area. Since this photo was taken the new
building for Medical Science has started being constructed
just to the right of our building as seen in the above
shot. The University sports centre and playing fields
are the other side of New Hall.

For
more information on various activities, please click on
the links below. Please note that these will take
you out of the web pages maintained by this School.